No one is more important to you than your child and there’s nothing more precious than time. When parents break off their relationship or end their marriage, basic questions such as :who gets to spend time with whom, when and for how long can cause a lot of friction, but it doesn’t have to if both parents can work together and put their children’s interests ahead of their own.

“Parenting time” is a term for the time a parent spends with a child because he or she has visitation rights or shared custody. Normally what rights a parent has to see a child and make important decisions about his or her life are agreed to between the parents or litigated through the family court system. A court order eventually spells out who has what rights to the child for what time frames.

All too often that’s not the end of it. What looks good on paper, for good reasons or bad, becomes a tug of war. Parents don’t get along and their children are caught in the cross fire. The parents may have had a difficult split up or divorce or for whatever reason feel wronged by the other person. The child becomes another battle ground. One parent may also legitimately fear that the other may endanger the child and it’s not in the child’s interest to be with the person.

When parents of minor children decide to end their relationship and separate or divorce, they usually end up with child custody orders spelling out child custody rights. Child custody includes legal custody (which refers to a parent’s authority to participate in major decisions regarding a child’s health, education, or general welfare) and physical custody (which refers to the child’s actual presence with a parent).

Who has what rights

Having legal custody means you can make important decisions for your child. One parent may have legal custody or it may be joint (shared by both parents). Physical custody means the child lives with a parent, which can also be joint (shared by both parents) or one can have primary physical custody (the child lives most of the time with that parent) with the rest of the time with the other parent.

If a child spends more than about 72% of time with one parent, the court designates that parent as the “primary parent of residence” (PPR) while the other parent is the “parent of alternate residence” (PAR). In more traditional terms the PPR has physical custody and the PAR has visitation.

Custody decisions are based mostly on what the court sees as the child’s best interests with physical and emotional welfare given the highest priorities. While a judge may need to decide who is with the child most of the time, there’s an assumption a child will benefit from having two parents involved in his or her life. Parents normally make their own time-sharing agreements if the schedule is seen as meeting the child’s best interests.

The law favors children spending significant time with both parents, so judges look into each parent’s willingness to encourage and cooperate with efforts to allow the child to maintain a relationship with each other. A parent who wants to interfere with the child’s relationship with the other parent, or who has already taken actions to do so, will normally be at a disadvantage in a custody dispute.

Interference with visitation

Interference is only limited by the imagination of the disgruntled parent. It can be any action or words that inhibits the relationship between the child and the other parent, including:

• Extreme behavior like preventing contact entirely
• Visits may be consistently delayed, with or without excuses
• Intercepting letters or emails and blocking phone calls
• Persistently scheduling children’s activities away from home when the other parent should be spending time with the child.
• A judge wants to see the parents communicating, constant phone calls or uninvited visits to the other parent’s home may be considered disruptive. Interference can also be verbal by saying negative things about the other parent to or around the child so he or she won’t want to be with the other parent.

Denying visits and child support issues

If a parent isn’t getting child support payments at all, or payments are late, that parent may want to retaliate by preventing or shortening time spent by the child with the other parent. As logical as this may seem, it’s contrary to the law. Custody rights and child support are two different things. Not getting support doesn’t mean you can pull the plug on visits.

A parent who’s not getting child support in full or in a timely manner can contact the New Jersey Department of Human Services or go to court to enforce payments. The time with the child is not a carrot or stick in a support dispute. On the other hand if one parent is blocking access to the child, the remedy is through the legal system, not withholding child support.

The child doesn’t want to go

A child in this situation can feel like a pawn or that his or her life is completely out of control. One way to assert control, for good reasons or bad, is to refuse to see the other parent. Parents are under an obligation to encourage a child to see the other parent, but courts rarely oversee this. A court can state a parent needs to transport the child to the other parent’s home or mutually designated location, but older children become less portable and more difficult to manage as time goes on.

If a judge sees this lack of cooperation caused by one parent’s actions or words trying to alienate the child from the other parent, a judge can take several actions (see below). A judge normally won’t force visits but may change his or her primary residence. Whatever is done must be done with the child’s best interests in mind.

What can happen if custody or visitation is interfered with?

Violating a court order is an invitation to a judge to make your life more difficult and/or unpleasant. A court may order any number of remedies as long as they are fair, appropriate and in the best interests of the child, including holding the offending parent in contempt. Remedies may include:

• “Make-up” parenting time
• The interfering parent paying for counseling for the child or the other parent
• The interfering parent paying costs caused by the interference
• Changing transportation arrangements or pick-up location
• Changing parenting time temporarily or permanently
• The interfering parent needs to participate in community service
• The arrest and imprisonment of the interfering parent

A parent taking, detaining, enticing or detaining a child to interfere with court-ordered parenting time can face criminal charges under New Jersey law. Depending on the circumstances the punishment could be prison time. There are possible defenses to this charge:

• If you believe your child is in immediate danger that’s a potential defense, but to use this defense a parent hiding the child for safety reasons needs to disclose the child’s location to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency or to the police or prosecutor in the child’s county of residence as soon as possible, always within 24 hours of concealment.
• A parent who has lawful custody and is fleeing from imminent physical danger posed by the other parent also has a defense, if the parent on the run reports the child’s location to the appropriate authorities or files a custody action in an appropriate court as soon as reasonably possible.

If you find yourself on either end of this kind of a custody dispute, we can help. Contact our office so we can discuss the situation. Often the parties can be brought to an understanding of what needs to be done. If the existing custody order needs to be changed or the other parent presents a potential threat to the child’s wellbeing, we can start the legal process to make sure your child’s best interests are met.